Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Passover Vacation

I was invited to preach next Sunday and so I have spent a lot of time over the last two weeks with my friend Thomas, who was my favorite disciple until last year, when Mary Magdalene squeezed in ahead of him. I tried to write about them both, but I do not have the skill to incorporate all the ideas that bubbled up into one 17 or 18 minute piece. So Thomas it is.

I am working on a major paper for the graduate class I am taking, so I have also spent a lot of time with Muslims making the hajj. It turns out that there is a lot more to it than hopping a place to Mecca.

Yesterday I had two separate, but each of them very long, conversations with Christian colleagues, one of them deeply religious and one of them not at all, about the challenges of teaching in a Jewish day school.

And the best time of all has been the four days that I spent with Windy City son, in DC and on the eastern shore of Maryland. He is transforming himself from a student with a couple of pairs of jeans and a sublet room to a young man with an apartment, a car, and a wardrobe of "casual business" clothes. The best part of all is watching the quiet enthusiasm and balance with which he approaches the next adventure in life. No ~ the best part is watching him live out the promise of fourth grade, when his class was asked to discern from a lengthy list the most important of human qualities, and his choice was "kindness."

When I remember to think about it, I am so grateful for this life so overflowing with such a variety of people and ideas.

And also with birds. What kind of world would it be without snowy and great egrets decked out for spring?

9 comments:

This is so neat. Young boys receive so many crappy messages from the media, from their peers, from their elders... it's beautiful to hear about people raising sons well. "Kindness" is a gorgeous answer.

Have you seen an article in the March 19 issue of Presbyterian Outlook entitled "Cracking the Code With Iran: Meeting Iran's President"?

Wondering about your take on it.

(In trying to reach out to the Bush administration, the president of Iran keeps using the vocabulary of the OT prophets, which I think is imitated in the Koran, but in spite of Bush's claim of being an Evangelical it doesn't seem anybody in his office understands that vocabulary, so they just don't seem to respond at all)

Have done a little research on the Hajj myself and it is a breathtaking pilgrimage. My students were always captivated by circling the Ka'aba, touching the meteorite, and the other steps. Along with stopping everything to get down on one's knees five times daily to pray, it seems to me that Islam;s spiritual mandates keep its followers closer to God in some ways.I just had a parent e-mail about her son, a special ed student. I had written her about his missing work, but also the dose of honest praise, and she responded she is so proud of him because he 'refuses to be mean.' Your son, too!I would add birds and flowers.*debbi*p.s. I noticed Paul finally has a recent entry--didn't notice the dates of your scolding and the new piece, but maybe your prodding worked!

Why Gannet? Why Search the Sea?

Gannets are enormous and sleek creamy-white seabirds, with black wingtips, yellow heads and necks, and startlingly outlined eyes. They nest on the rocky cliffs of the European and North American coasts of the North Atlantic and, once grown, spend their days sailing across the ocean. The acrobatics by which they make their living ~ steep climbs into the air and speedy plunges straight into the sea ~ are rivaled only by those of pelicans.
What better metaphor for a sweeping search of one's life choices and opportunities than a gannet extended above the waves, a regal and yet restless surveyor of the vast ocean surface? The gannet reminds us that life is an adventure in both beauty and profound unease, and that the sea itself is limitless in its textures and possibilities.